Ernst: North Port springs a worthy investment

If we could go back 100 years and make a list of all the features of Sarasota County that we would like to protect and preserve, Warm Mineral Springs would be near the top of the list.

Jono Miller said that.

Miller, an adjunct professor of environmental studies at New College and a County Commission candidate in 2008, raises a point that has been somewhat lost as the county and North Port squabble over their joint ownership.

The springs are an incredible geologic/hydrologic phenomena.

They are the only springs in the state to produce warm water. It emerges 230 feet below the surface at 92 to 94 degrees, hot enough to maintain a temperature averaging 87 degrees in the basin where visitors swim and float.

No one knows the origin of the warm water. It did not, however, fall as rain last week 50 miles away. It's old water, maybe hundreds and hundreds of years old. Miller says it could have originated in a rainstorm that pelted Ponce de Leon as he searched for the fountain of youth.

It's been underground all this time, working its way through porous rock formations, waiting for just the right combination of heat, pressure and fractures to come out of the earth near North Port.

The springs have archaeological significance. Scientists, some from Florida State University, have harvested saber-tooth tiger bones and other artifacts from its depths. Presumably, whenever someone puts together a plan and raises the money to implement it, Warm Mineral Springs will disgorge more clues to our past. The dearth of oxygen in the water preserves these archaeological treasures.

As it flows from the basin, the warm water of the springs also provides a buffer from the winter cold for manatees. They congregate downstream in a setting much more natural than that of a power plant discharge.

And, of course, the highly mineralized water attracts visitors who believe in its recuperative powers.

Most of the discussion and political controversy over what should happen to the springs and who should own them focuses on this last attribute. We have become almost obsessed with tapping into the tourist potential, figuring out a way to profit financially from this natural resource. We've been treating the springs almost as if they were a roadside attraction like the world's biggest ball of string.

When North Port and Sarasota County bought the springs and 81 acres around them in 2010, much of their incentive came from the idea that the attraction would generate economic development, a fancy way of saying someone could make some money off the deal.

Now, as often happens when money's involved, the two partners have had a falling out. Miller has an analogy for that. He says the governments are like two parents in the kitchen arguing over an impending divorce while their child stands neglected and forgotten in the doorway.

All the talk about private-public partnerships and management leases and returning the springs to the tax rolls sounds so petty when one considers that the subject is a one-of-its-kind natural wonder on the Floridian peninsula. From that perspective, the springs don't have to be "developed." God, or nature, has already done that work over millions of years.

Even without condos or convention centers or hotels, the springs have value in and of themselves.